How to prevent mango fruit drop
Q: My mature mango tree is fully grown 15 yrs old and each year
it fully blooms, sometimes twice. Shortly thereafter, all the baby mangos and
flowers fall off providing no mangos for the season. I have tried
fertilizing, spraying the tree for fungus or other insects, to no avail. I give up, any
suggestions?
A: Dropping fruit in pretty common issue with mango trees. There
may be several reasons, or a combination of reasons.
1. Fungal disease (anthracnose), and/or powdery mildew. To avoid
fungal disease problems, spray your tree when it just begins to form the flower
spikes. Treat foliage with Copper fungicide. There is also another
one, very effective for anthracnose: Thiophanate methyl.
2. Inadequate nutrition. Feed your tree with a combination of
granulated fertilizer Mango-Food, liquid booster SUNSHINE Mango Tango and micro-elements Sunshine Honey and Sunshine Superfood
Check out pictures of our mango tree problems that were fixed within a month by
using Sunshine Boosters.
3. Too much rain or heavy dew during blooming and fruit set (see 1 -
use preventive treatment for fungus)
4. Cold. Sometimes the cause of premature fruit drop is from the
cold weather during bloom and fruit set. Usually the most affected varieties are
the early bloomers including Glenn, Haden. The cold damages the developing
embryo in the seed. The fruit starts to develop but because of ethylene gas
given off by the damaged embryo, the fruit is triggered to drop before
maturity. To see if cold temperature was the cause for your fruit dropping, cut open
the fallen fruit. Even if there is a small speck of brown in the seed,
that's enough damage to stop fruit development.
To learn more how to care for your mango, please read this publication.
